The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy - The Golden Horde & Robert Anton Wilson
Some music is so closely bundled with the time you heard it that the experience of listening and remembering is inseperable. This is one of the reasons why a list like this becomes personal. I remember watching the original incarnation of the Horde, sitting amoung cider cans in park beside St Patricks Cathedral in Dublin; going to afternoon gigs in McGonagles; the Trinity Ball. The band had go-go dancers onstage, laughed and jumped and played with the idea of being a rock 'n' roll band.
With songs about UFO's and chocolate biscuits they were largely unburdened by the angst which ran in a rich seam through my record collection. And they were from Dublin. I met them on a few occasions, they were friends of friends and they seemed good fun. And when I remember the good times from this period the song I reach for is Young and Happy, a song that seems to capture the weightless exuberance of careless youth. here is a live version from a concert I was at! The pleasures of YouTube.
The anarchic streak which ran through their music is here amplified by the presence of magickal prankster and king of conspiracies Robert Anton Wilson, author of the infamous Illuminatus! Trilogy. He mutters in the background of chocolate easter bunnies from outer space, Mary Magdalene and the Marx Brothers, giving an even more anarchic edge to the record.
The Horde also collaborated with Johnny Thunders and Maria McKee amoung others and became a more engineered r'n'r band but this is the period I look back to most often and with the greatest affection.
There is a Facebook group with lots of links if you are interested in hearing more, and a website full of info for fellow nostalgiastas.
Bonus Feature
Here's a song from their first ep, Dig That Crazy Grave. I've always loved the line "If I find you on your own I'll eat your skull like Toblerone." Almost turned me cannibal.
another brand new one for me so thanks for the links
ReplyDeleteThis kind of goes with your Something Happens post. The Horde, The Heavens, A House, The Happens and The (Gore)Hounds were the bands to see in the late eighties in Dublin. If the name didn't have a word starting with H they were probably not much cop ; )
DeleteA whiff of The Revillos (or was it Rezillos?) here Seamus.
ReplyDeleteOne of those 'you had to be there' bands I'm thinking...